So I have gone out and created a small area with ORB. I will need to use the convertion to put it into AFK. How clean is the conversion? Is there going to be things I am going to need to go in with the OLC and do some editing after converting before the area will load up?

Because of the need to do this convertion will there be more complications with mobs, items and rooms being converted. Right now this area I have made is only rooms. But if it would be better that i do the items or mobs with the OLC not orb then I figure I should find out sooner rather then later.

There are a number of documents out there for OLC. Is there a recomended one from you folks?

The conversion should give you a pretty much "clean" AFK version of the ORBed area, minus a couple of things like the economy stuff, which is now, um, something other than the economy stuff that I can't remember at 10am. Otherwise it should be fine.

Obviously once you convert, the format has changed enough so that you're not going to be able to use ORB on it anymore. There's also a not-insignificant amount of new flags and such that have been added, not to mention the change in weapon values and a number of other things that I'm not remembering just now.

And it's probably wiser to OLC as much of the area as you possibly can get away with, if for no other reason than you'll have all the stuff there to work with. There's obviously no AFK OLC doc as such (I should probably make one, yes), but we're not so dissimilar from regular SMAUG OLC that you shouldn't be able to use a regular doc to find your way around. Help redit/mset/oset should at least get you started, as well as the immortal university. And I or somebody who knows what they're doing is pretty much always around either here or Alsherok.

Part of the appeal of course of ORB is that it is portable. I can work on areas at work, on a laptop (if I had one) and other computers, without having to attach to the mud. That is great especially with firewalls at work the way they are, and my dial-up sometimes being a pain.

Time to buck up and learn OLC .

Thanks...

Oh what is the economy thing for anyway? should I put a number in there? Is there a general rule of thumb for it?

Oh what is the economy thing for anyway? should I put a number in there? Is there a general rule of thumb for it?

The economy field is dead. It was an old stock thing that held some sort of gold value we never really bothered to dig into. And as Dwip said, somewhere in the past it held continent data. Those days are gone too. Economy will simply be ignored when converting the area. Everything else should convert nice and clean, although I'm not 100% sure of how the weapon values will come out. I'll have to check on that.

So the converter should convert the rooms pretty cleanly? I will have relitivly little to clean up when it is done?

How about mobs? Does it convert them cleanly?

It sounds like weapons will be something I will have to clean up after the convertion.

I am trying to get a feel for what I should look for after I convert an area I have built in Orb. Or what some of my other builders will need to look for in their areas when they finish them in ORB then convert them to AFK.

Thanks for the tip on leaving the economy field blank.

These little technical things could be such a pain if it wasn't for you guys. Thanks a lot.

The only things you should really have to worry alot about are:
weapons, missile meapons, and projectiles. The value arrangements on those got futzed with when we added the profficiencies patch to the code eons ago.

Mobs should convert cleanly using stock settings. We preserved all of those. There may be some new stuff you might want that won't be there, but your base mobs should be fine. Same with rooms.

Resets will convert with no intervention necessary, as will shops, repairs, and specials.

At least I can get the general area, objects and mobs together, then just convert them. Touch up the area after that. Nothing is perfect. But knowing there is nothing major going to happen, and the weapons are the side of the house I need to be aware of.. well I think I can at least be able to do skeleton developing offline. So that will allow me some portablity.

Thanks so much for the input.

Pretty soon I am going to start having those silly questions about how to hide entrances and make non standard exit/doors....